On Monday, October 18, the theatre company held auditions for the department’s first musical production, High School Musical, which is scheduled for the weekend of January 27 through the 29. 

The theatre director, Racey Ballard, was inspired to pick this musical because of the underlying message of the show. 

“It really does have a great message underneath it all,” Ballard said. “We are all in this together is a great motto to live by starting a brand new school and a brand-new theatre department.” 

The department has already produced one show, “Almost, Maine”, earlier this month. Students both in and out of theatre were welcomed to audition for the show. 

“I’ve done musicals in the past,” sophomore Reese Williams said. “I wanted to audition for High School Musical because I love the community we’ve built here at Emerson.”

Since High School Musical is well known among this generation, many students were nervous regarding their audition. Sophomore Nora Regas says that she not only felt anxious about auditioning for the show, but about the people she was auditioning against.

“Everyone is so talented and it’s hard not to be intimidated by everyone,” Regas said. “I just wanted to make sure that no matter the outcome of my audition, that I was able to do High School Musical justice!”

Now that the audition process is over, Mr. Ballard feels good about the overall results. 

“Everything we do is a learning process whether you get cast or not,” Ballard said. “We all hope the students learn something and grow in the process of auditioning.”